Who In Review: The Mind Of Evil

The 1970s saw a complete turnaround for Doctor Who with the Doctor's exile to Earth and the change from Black & White to Colour. The new Doctor, also, was a contrast to what had gone before; whilst Troughton had introduced more physicality to the role, Jon Pertwee went one step further and made the Doctor an action hero. After a debut series with a much grittier, adult look, heavily influenced by the BBC's earlier Quatermass productions, Producer Barry Letts and Script Editor Terrence Dicks brought in a softer approach which took advantage of the new colour recording, and widened the cast beyond the companion to encompass not only new series regular Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart but his group of UNIT soldiers including Sergeant Benton, Captain Yates and (briefly) Corporal Bell. The 'UNIT Family' came to epitomise the Pertwee era, along with the introduction of new arch-nemesis the Master, and 1970-1974 was something of a 'Golden Age' for the show seeing it increase in popularity after dwindling audiences towards the end of the 60s. My favourite Pertwee story comes from early on in the run, something of a last hurrah for the grittiness of Season 7, but featuring elements which would make the subsequent series so great:

The Mind Of Evil

Following on from the garish colours and high use of CSO in Terror Of The Autons, The Mind Of Evil is an altogether more sombre affair starting off, like the majority of Season 7, with the Doctor and his assistant paying a visit to an institution as representatives of UNIT. So far, so familiar. The Doctor is in a particularly snippy mood, undermining Professor Kettering's introduction to the Keller Process in an incredibly humorous way before having his doubts proven when the treatment of criminal George Barnham goes decidedly wrong. All this fits in well with the set up for the previous season's stories, but whilst they were immediately more clinical and serious due to both the Doctor and Liz Shaw being highly intelligent scientists, these scenes are given a warmer atmosphere due to Jo's presence. It's clear that this is early on in Jo's development as a character in the show as Don Houghton writes her as a more competent member of a military team than anyone else, but this fits in with her character elsewhere to some extent; her termination of the prison uprising at the start of Part 3 is mostly due to quick thinking and luck - it's by chance that she guns down one of the criminals with her captor's firearm, manages to grab a dropped pistol and hold Mailer at gunpoint while the prison guards deal with the others, and her attempt to overpower Mailer again at the end of Part 5 demonstrates the bravery she would show in future stories whilst echoing her impetuousness when investigating the Auton invasion. It's also clear from the start that Jon and Katy, and thus the Doctor and Jo, get on very well. He's happy to have someone to explain things to and she's happy to let him, and seems genuinely amused by his occasional pompousness. Had Liz Shaw been with the Doctor during the demonstration of the Keller Process, she would have been more likely to try and stop him from making a scene rather than laugh at his bitchy remarks. And Liz would probably have treated the processed Barnham in a very different way, too.

Oh yes, George Barnham. His character is one of the most interesting in the show, especially his treatment. Throughout, he wanders around with (as the Doctor puts it) the mind of a child, and is treated with clinical pity by Doctor Summers and compassion by Jo. But he underwent the Keller Process, indicating that he was a highly dangerous criminal. It's even stated that this is taking place instead of capital punishment. I find it interesting that nothing is made of this, that Jo is probably taking care of a murderer, and that the script actually puts the viewer in a position of feeling compassion for him as well!

But that's one of the great things about this story; it's full of examples of people not doing what you expect them to. Captain Chin Lee is severe and abrupt but is being used by the Master to disrupt the Peace Conference which UNIT is overseeing; the Chinese delegate, Fu Peng, is also set up to be a difficult character but when the Doctor greets him in Hokkien he proves to be charming and amenable - unsurprising when, surrounded by foreign military guards and following the murder of his predecessor, the Doctor seems to be the first person to make an effort to be civil. Okay, so Pertwee's accent and pronunciation is terrible, but the intent is there and underlines how crucial the Time Lord is to UNIT.

This is a great UNIT story employing them as more than soldiers guarding the Earth against alien invasion and has all the main cast running around trying to juggle the different plot elements. I think one of the things I love most about this story is how many plot threads there are and how they all tie together; there's the Peace Conference being run by the Brigadier which the Master is trying to disrupt, the poorly timed missile convoy being led by Captain Yates, and the Doctor and Jo's investigation into the tests at Stangmoor Prison. On top of these we have Mailer's coup and the Master's plot to use the missile to throw the Earth into a third World War.

And this story paints the Master incredibly well. As his second story, it must have been quite a surprise to find he was the one pulling the strings (and in a series which sees him return again and again, this time it doesn't seem contrived). He's rarely more suave than he is here, sat in the back of his limousine, smoking a cigar and listening to King Crimson. His treatment of the hypnotised Chin Lee is verging on creepy, but Delgado plays it with a detached air aware that, to the Master, these Humans are nothing more than animals, pawns to use to get what he wants - a decimated Earth with a subjugated population which he can rule over. His motivation hasn't changed since Terror Of The Autons, but the back story to this seems to span several months, with the set up of the Keller Process aided by Chin Lee and the background machinations leading up to the Peace Conference - the Master must have pulled a lot of strings and put a lot of effort into getting everything set up right. Was this his original plan, working behind the scenes to surreptitiously plunge the world into war before he learnt of the Auton sphere and the Doctor's presence on Earth helping UNIT? Using the Nestene Consciousness to take over the Earth feels like a quick solution, an easy way of attaining his goals, thus bumping the Keller Process to Plan B should the gambit with the Autons fall through. Overall, in his second story, the Master comes across as a calculating, sophisticated and unflappable adversary for the Doctor which serves to further define the character as the show's 'Moriarty' (most importantly, given some of the pantomime-esque schemes he'd be involved with in the decades to come!).

Ultimately, the show would follow the more family-friendly trends of Terror Of The Autons (bright, bold colours, alien invasions, a more humorous approach) than the harsh grittiness of The Mind Of Evil and Season 7. The grim reality of prison riots, alternatives to capital punishment and Peace Conferences would return in later seasons but without the edge and against backdrops of alien invasion and future societies. On the whole, this was definitely the right thing to do - Season 7 and The Mind Of Evil stand out for their more adult feel, but for continued success the show needed to appeal to the entire family. While Terror Of The Autons set this up, The Mind Of Evil properly established the new UNIT team, displayed how well the format worked and offered a link to the starkness of the previous series. It's this mix of styles, the gorgeous sets and location work and the brilliant use of the core cast which makes this story my favourite from the Third Doctor's era.